UK solar panel give-away is clever long-term cash cow

As the PhotoVoltaic (PV) industry in the UK is set for 1500 percent expansion it’s being helped along the way with initiatives like feed-in tariffs (FITs) for residential and business customers.

An energy company, HomeSun, is going a step further to popularise the green tech and is offering free solar panel installations to households to the tune of £1 billion.

The scheme will see roughly 2.5 million homes being given free panels over the next three years. It’s in an effort to ramp up renewable power adoption in the UK in order for the government to reach EU carbon reduction targets.

However well meaning the initiative – it’s not purely charity. Everyone likes a free lunch. In the UK there is something called feed-in tariffs which allow people who have installed PV panels to sell their excess energy back to the national grid for a tidy profit, eventually meaning solar energy can theoretically pay back for the price of installation.

Any energy generated by HomeSun in what seems like a generous giveaway will still get sold back to the national grid. But HomeSun will take a share of the profits. It’s a win win for HomeSun – charitably nudging the UK into a greener age, while it will also reap massive profits in the long run from the 100,000 homes it installs its giveaway cash cow to.